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Comment by bzb3 | Hacker News Reader

I recommend users to install the LTSC version of Windows 10. It's akin to the LTS version of Ubuntu.

This is great info. I searched for "LTSC Windows 10", and got to the linked page[0]. However, this line jumped out at me:

The Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) is designed for Windows 10 devices and use cases where the key requirement is that functionality and features don’t change over time.

What?? Is there a requirement scenario where this is NOT true? I don't buy and set up my OS/computers just so things break randomly because of forced updates.

Why do companies do this? Why is avoiding breaking updates considered a hipster/contrarian/rebellious thing?

[0]: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/l...

LTSC versions were not exempted from this regression.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-information...

> Affected platforms: ... Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019; ... Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2015; Windows 8.1

Where do you purchase this?

I see people recommend this _all the time_ and yet as far as I know the only way to legally obtain LTSC is via a 45$/month subscription to MSDN. Is there some other avenue I'm not aware of? If not, then that price is absurd for a feature set that used to be available by default in Windows 7.

Until recently there was a free Bizspark program which granted you five MSDN subscription for two years. Apart from that, there is a Action Pack which comes with (among others) three MSDN subscriptions and ten Windows 10 Enterprise licenses for 500 USD/yr.

Do the Action Pack licenses allow for general use or is it limited like the MSDN licenses are?

Since Action Pack is a subscription, what happens to the licenses when you stop paying?

When I still used it ~5 years ago, there were additional conditions on Action Pack licenses. AFAIR your company had to generate 80% of income from software development or similar services to be eligible and licenses were for internal use only.

After ending the subscription there was a one year grace period to either obtain new license, renew subscription or remove the software. In BizSpark you got to keep the licenses, apart from MSDN subscription of course.

AFAIK it's only available through volume licensing, which means you can't buy a single copy (you need around 30 licenses minimum, I believe). However, I've heard stories of people bypassing this limit by buying 1 license for LTSC (~$300), and then 29 CAL licenses (a few dollars each) as a filler.

If you're not particularly concerned about licensing though, just pirate it.

The minimum volume license buy is 5 licenses. Any good reseller will sell you 1 copy of LTSC and 4 of the cheapest SKU in the catalog (usually $5-10 / ea) to get your volume license contract started. After that you can purchase piecemeal for 2 years before you need to fulfill the minimum purchase again. The licenses themselves are perpetual.

I don't like it, but it's not too hard to do either.

Your local BitTorrent store

Without the requisite infrastructure (SCCM or Intune, honestly, to make it sing), this isn't recommended. No Microsoft Store means no WSL distros (without fiddling), no updates to system applications (maybe you like this), no Windows Terminal (again, without fiddling).

Just get Enterprise or Education (which if you know a kid with a Office 365 acccount from their school, they can log into Azure and get a MSDN key for free[0]), and run ShutUp 10 to kill the telemetry. Or just set the three to four GPOs. Done.

[0]: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/education/

>No Microsoft Store means no WSL distros

you can install the microsoft store later. also, since WSL distros are appx files, you can sideload them even without the store installed.

>no updates to system applications

not sure what you mean by this. what is there to update?

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